People who earn money -.vs. people who are given money - have different spending habits. My point is that the same household who earned the money -.vs. being given the money - would not be buying soft drinks and other low nutrition food AT ALL. It is common sense for anyone who has actually known anyone who is poor.
Keynsian economics - which you have re branded in order to make it sound better - has NEVER worked, except for one thing. It ensures that crony capitalism rules the day, because the folks handing out the money always, always, always pay off their constituents and donors. Taking money from the rich - and giving it to the poor - sounds great, but at the end of the day the people deciding who will get the money are the ones that win. That's why they like it so much. People who crave power, and want to control you, are Keynesian supporters, as are marxists because it smacks of centralized planning which is very, very bad for everyone except the people at the very top. This is why every Democrat who gets elected pushes a huge "stimulus" - to pay off the people who got him elected - and then the result is hardly any "jobs created or saved" but oh the fanfare of how glorious the "stimulus" is gets trumpeted to the base who laps it up. Of course the bulk of that money goes for "infrastructure" which means "unions" who recycle the money back in to the party in a great big corrupt money laundering scheme. That;s what you're selling. I am not buying. The government spends $350,000 to create a $100,000 a year temporary job because $250,000 of bribes are involved.
Why you think that money "spent fast" is different than money "spent slow" is beyond me. The critical metric is the velocity of money which is unaffected by this. Why you think "money spent locally" reduces globalization is also a mystery. In the grocery store you find products from all over, because that's what people want.
How, I wonder, did humans survive before the "Great Society"? About the same as they do now. The trillions and trillions of dollars we have thrown at your idea since the 60's has barely moved the poverty needle. And please, don't tell me the reason it has failed since the 60's is because we didn't do enough of it.... The whole idea that you can eliminate a problem by throwing money at it is completely insane.
The vast majority of people have self respect, and would rather have a job. How hard is this for people who have never been hungry a day in their lives - but are eager and willing to tell those at the bottom what's good for them - to understand?
What percentage of their money would they have spent on crap if the money wasn't free? I'd wager far less. But it's hopeless because clearly if anyone disagrees with your ideology, which has a religous fervor to it, has no room for any viewpoint other than your own.
Some developers quote by the Ego method. Others quote by the fear method. It's critical to know what kind of developer is making the quote. If by Ego double, if by fear halve... Then add 20% for Q/A, 10% for Technical Project Management. Next, add Client PITA factor, if client always hits you with lots of last minute changes add 40% else add 20%. This works for us:-) A few clients never deviate from spec and have a PITA factor of zero, but they are rare. Denying iterative processes is what kills most quotes in terms of accuracy IMHO.
As for ridiculously increased income inequality, we've come a long ways since the era of kings and peasants:-) My only concern is that under progressive rule during the eight years of Obama income inequality increased dramatically so I don't believe either political party in the U.S. is in a position to claim to care about it, much less have a solution.
What "massive subsidies" do Telco's get, and while you didn't raise this particular point why is DSL so horrible, I lived on 6MB DSL for two years it's not bad at all.
For the record I believe ALL subsidies to ALL companies should be cut immediately.
Of course the same idiots who now say UBI will solve the problem are the same idiots who killed public works off by writing tens of thousands of pages of regulations, diversity requirements, OSHA requirements, and the like that prevent having work crews do simple jobs like build paths or parks. These are the idiots that create "jobs" using government stimulus money where 1 job that pays $50,000 costs the taxpayers $350,000. These are the idiots that want to kill coal and oil, replacing it with something that costs ten times as much, and then lament when the coal and oil jobs are gone.
Maybe, just maybe we need to stop listening to the idiots.... Something like the WPA would be a perfect replacement for welfare, but the OSHA and EPA people would kill it dead. Because the truth is that people would rather have self respect and earn their own way than take any kind of hand out. Hand outs buy votes from stupid people, period, end of story.
Yes but the solution is to eliminate the lobbyists and influence peddlers not exchange the current system for one slightly different. The fantasy that you will have a "government/business partnership" if government is big and businesses are small is terribly naive. One needs to have a strongly competitive business climate AND a strongly competitive government climate where government exerts just enough control to hold things together, and people are free to strive to be their absolute best.
Put another way, the problem is you have declared one group of humans greedy and the other groups benevolent, the truth is they are ALL greedy and act in their own self interest. You can't regulate how people act, or pine for a world where humans aren't what they are, it isn't going to happen.
Based on what? The demise of progressive ideology in the U.S.? The rise of populism.vs. socialism?
"'Economists' are wrong very, very often"
The worst offender here is Paul Krugman, one of the darlings of demand side economics, who, when confronted with conflicting opinions in the comment section of his blog, was so offended that anyone dare disagree with him that he shut the comments off forever. This is the same economist who claimed that the election of Trump would cause the markets to fall, and stay depressed for the next four years.
"The thing with income is that the first parts of it are spent very, very fast on essential goods and services. "
Actually the evidence is that if you give people free money they spend it on crap first. What you are really buying with UBI are votes, power, and control over people. Get enough people on UBI and they will vote to keep you in power forever, which is how repressive totalitarian regimes can be created without firing a shot. Is this what you want? I think you're being duped.
Every site we develop has a dev instance with Robots set to dissallow, and a prod instance. If the dev instances get exposed to the outside world (search, archive, wayback) then you have to teach reviewers how to use local vhost files which will be a huge pain in the ass, or put.htaccess passwords on everything which is just plain stupid.
Thanks having been a Ham since the eighties I understand spectrum. The only area where we disagree is on regulations - I believe that the whole notion that one group of humans organized in hierarchical groups is somehow superior to another group of humans in hierarchical groups is fundamentally flawed. For example, many people believe that government is benevolent whereas corporations are evil. Or that one religion is superior to another.
Societies with a free flow of information are, in my opinion, self policing. There's plenty of evidence to support this going back to the 1800's. Just look at what's happening to United Airlines right now.
It's when somebody decides they can make money by taking advantage of others that we get big problems, and I have found it's the politicians who are the worst of the worst, all the while telling us how smart they are and how stupid the rest of us country bumpkins are....
I never suggested anarchy. What I am saying is that some states are vastly over-regulated and that is part of the the problem.
It varies greatly from state to state. In Texas I have a choice of 7 electricity companies. In Michigan, no choices. You can't tell me that's not the governments fault. Texas is a red state, Michigan is a blue state trying to become a purple state. Coincidence? Maybe. But the way the two states handle competition among utilities is completely different.
It's getting harder and harder to find places with no LTE coverage. I don't think it's a matter of poles, I think it's more a matter of the fiber connection at the base of the pole. Assuming that some of the DTV channel spectrum is allowed to be auctioned off we'll have a nice new segment for more WI-Fi and we'll see if "super wi-fi" comes to pass.
I remember when the fastest speed we could ever get using POTS was 1200 baud. And then 2400 baud. And then 9600 baud, that was it. And here I am at my Texas house in the middle of nowhere on 6MB dialup. So before anyone says "That isn't possible" look at history. 6MB over copper phone lines is PFM as far as I am concerned. (Pure Fucking Magic)
In the early days of the Internet there were maybe 2 fiber carriers, AT&T and WilTel. Now there are many of them. That's because it all happened to fast for the government to fuck it up. There's plenty of room on oil pipeline right of ways for lots more fiber to be run. But to hear people talk AT&T controls the whole internet in some evil monopolistic money grubbing theft ring and "there ought to be more regulation".
If one looks back at the history of regulation - it started with the RailRoads, who had a problem with safety, there was public outcry, the Railroads formed an association and policed themselves, and then the government decided it had to get involved. Now everyone believes "there ought to be a law" or nothing happens and look at the mess were in....
"1. It is economically unfeasible for anyone to bring you service other than the existing provider who is piggybacking on prior infrastructure. In this case, you chose a poor place to live. It's not the fault of the company or the taxpayer that it would cost $10 million in fiber to service 100 rural customers and they won't do it because there's no reasonable return on investment. If you don't like it, nobody is putting a gun to your head saying you have to stay there. Some people move because they want more land, or less traffic, or better climate. Internet service is no different."
I hear this statement over and over but it's just not true. It's only true in places where the government has picked winners and losers, and created a monopoly because of the huge bribes, er contributions paid by the players. You are spot on there.
At this moment I am sitting in BFE Central Texas. There is one electric line coming to the house, I have a choice of 7 different providers, because there is some small sanity in Texas outside of Austin and electric providers were deregulated. I have three choices for Internet: 3g from AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. DSL from the phone company (6MB down 768k up), and satellite internet. I can't get cable TV, or gas. Do I have fiber to my house? No, the nearest fiber is many miles away. 6 MB down DSL is enough for me to watch movies on netflix/you tube, make Skype video calls, etc.
If you have a phone line, you can probably get DSL. If you're living somewhere without phone service, you don't want the Internet....
I think the whole "We have to get the Internet to rural areas" is all about political corruption, same as you. My bet is some Union that funnels money to the DNC, which is why the story line is that we have to force "evil corporations" to provide a product to people.
It's the LEX that's the problem. We have a score of fiber providers competing with each other. In many states we have lots of electricity companies competing with each other (Texas is a great example) and there is only one set of wires. The LEX is controlled by governments who create the monopolies based on the biggest bribe...
Time and time again, for thousands of years, the evidence is that if you put a bunch of people in a room, give them a task, and don't pick a leader, a leader emerges.
Ask ANYONE who has managed teams, from a McDonald's franchise to an enterprise class I.T. project.
Problems occur when the leader is chosen for some stupid reason, like the girl with the biggest tits, the bosses son, or the guy who bought everyone donuts for a month. What makes you think the entire world of humans operates any differently?
We have big ISP's because the government created them, and now you want the government to "solve" the problem it created. Good luck with that. It's akin to solving your management problems by having the girl with the biggest tits get a boob job and expecting the project to be completed on time as a result.
I agree with you but I'd bet that State had a shitty, super-expensive monopoly electric service because the government allowed it to come into existence. The five year ban on a revolving door between government and lobbying implemented by the Trump Administration needs to be implemented nationwide.
If you put the government in charge of the Saraha Desert, in five years there would be a sand shortage - Milton Friedman. It's a true statement...
Oh come on, There's no reason at all to lose any money in "market crashes" if you have sell stops on your investments. If you're not doing that you should not be playing the market. If you're investing in real estate for anything other than your primary residence if you didn't do your due diligence on the market you bought into your an idiot. If it's your primary residence then you need to focus on paying it off as quickly as possible.
The idea that "computer investors" intentionally crash the market is so far out there I won't waste my time commenting on it.
Thank You. I too have been flying around the world since the early 80's and you are correct, it's the same everywhere. People who bitch and complain about Air Travel in the U.S, Europe, or Australia should try flying the Ukrainian National Airline, the most fun you'll ever have on a plane. You'll get off and say "Wow I didn't know it was so cold up there, and that a 727 could do that"
Funny how you blame corporations. When you book flights do you always look for the most expensive one?
The vast majority of consumers vote with their wallets every single time. People bitch and complain about offshoring and evil corporations but then go buy cheap Chinese crap at Wal-Mart and pass up the products with "Made in USA" labels. Then they lament that all the manufacturing jobs are gone.
If this was true Carnival Cruise Lines would have no passengers, and the upscale Cruise Lines would be raking it in hand over fist.
Your asserting that you know what the "vast majority want" just doesn't match reality. When you go to the next level, and assert that "There ought to be a law..." then things get REALLY fucked up. Are you old enough to remember the Airlines before de-regulation? Only the rich could afford to fly.
As the owner of a small business corporation I'd sure like to know how I can "whittle my taxes down to near zero", because I am paying, paying, and paying both business taxes and personal taxes.
The usual cherry picked statistics to support class warfare. Having listened to this shit argument for 30 some odd years you'd think it would just dry up and blow away. If you took all the wealth of the rich it would fund the government for about a week, the problem we have is excessive spending not too low or too high taxes.
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People who earn money - .vs. people who are given money - have different spending habits. My point is that the same household who earned the money - .vs. being given the money - would not be buying soft drinks and other low nutrition food AT ALL. It is common sense for anyone who has actually known anyone who is poor.
Keynsian economics - which you have re branded in order to make it sound better - has NEVER worked, except for one thing. It ensures that crony capitalism rules the day, because the folks handing out the money always, always, always pay off their constituents and donors. Taking money from the rich - and giving it to the poor - sounds great, but at the end of the day the people deciding who will get the money are the ones that win. That's why they like it so much. People who crave power, and want to control you, are Keynesian supporters, as are marxists because it smacks of centralized planning which is very, very bad for everyone except the people at the very top. This is why every Democrat who gets elected pushes a huge "stimulus" - to pay off the people who got him elected - and then the result is hardly any "jobs created or saved" but oh the fanfare of how glorious the "stimulus" is gets trumpeted to the base who laps it up. Of course the bulk of that money goes for "infrastructure" which means "unions" who recycle the money back in to the party in a great big corrupt money laundering scheme. That;s what you're selling. I am not buying. The government spends $350,000 to create a $100,000 a year temporary job because $250,000 of bribes are involved.
Why you think that money "spent fast" is different than money "spent slow" is beyond me. The critical metric is the velocity of money which is unaffected by this. Why you think "money spent locally" reduces globalization is also a mystery. In the grocery store you find products from all over, because that's what people want.
How, I wonder, did humans survive before the "Great Society"? About the same as they do now. The trillions and trillions of dollars we have thrown at your idea since the 60's has barely moved the poverty needle. And please, don't tell me the reason it has failed since the 60's is because we didn't do enough of it.... The whole idea that you can eliminate a problem by throwing money at it is completely insane.
The vast majority of people have self respect, and would rather have a job. How hard is this for people who have never been hungry a day in their lives - but are eager and willing to tell those at the bottom what's good for them - to understand?
What percentage of their money would they have spent on crap if the money wasn't free? I'd wager far less. But it's hopeless because clearly if anyone disagrees with your ideology, which has a religous fervor to it, has no room for any viewpoint other than your own.
Some developers quote by the Ego method. Others quote by the fear method. It's critical to know what kind of developer is making the quote. If by Ego double, if by fear halve... Then add 20% for Q/A, 10% for Technical Project Management. Next, add Client PITA factor, if client always hits you with lots of last minute changes add 40% else add 20%. This works for us :-) A few clients never deviate from spec and have a PITA factor of zero, but they are rare. Denying iterative processes is what kills most quotes in terms of accuracy IMHO.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
:-) My only concern is that under progressive rule during the eight years of Obama income inequality increased dramatically so I don't believe either political party in the U.S. is in a position to claim to care about it, much less have a solution.
Do you know who Paul Krugman is?
As for ridiculously increased income inequality, we've come a long ways since the era of kings and peasants
Sweden is in danger of going belly up, you know that, right?
What "massive subsidies" do Telco's get, and while you didn't raise this particular point why is DSL so horrible, I lived on 6MB DSL for two years it's not bad at all.
For the record I believe ALL subsidies to ALL companies should be cut immediately.
Of course the same idiots who now say UBI will solve the problem are the same idiots who killed public works off by writing tens of thousands of pages of regulations, diversity requirements, OSHA requirements, and the like that prevent having work crews do simple jobs like build paths or parks. These are the idiots that create "jobs" using government stimulus money where 1 job that pays $50,000 costs the taxpayers $350,000. These are the idiots that want to kill coal and oil, replacing it with something that costs ten times as much, and then lament when the coal and oil jobs are gone.
Maybe, just maybe we need to stop listening to the idiots.... Something like the WPA would be a perfect replacement for welfare, but the OSHA and EPA people would kill it dead. Because the truth is that people would rather have self respect and earn their own way than take any kind of hand out. Hand outs buy votes from stupid people, period, end of story.
Yes but the solution is to eliminate the lobbyists and influence peddlers not exchange the current system for one slightly different. The fantasy that you will have a "government/business partnership" if government is big and businesses are small is terribly naive. One needs to have a strongly competitive business climate AND a strongly competitive government climate where government exerts just enough control to hold things together, and people are free to strive to be their absolute best.
Put another way, the problem is you have declared one group of humans greedy and the other groups benevolent, the truth is they are ALL greedy and act in their own self interest. You can't regulate how people act, or pine for a world where humans aren't what they are, it isn't going to happen.
"Supply side economics has clearly failed."
.vs. socialism?
Based on what? The demise of progressive ideology in the U.S.? The rise of populism
"'Economists' are wrong very, very often"
The worst offender here is Paul Krugman, one of the darlings of demand side economics, who, when confronted with conflicting opinions in the comment section of his blog, was so offended that anyone dare disagree with him that he shut the comments off forever. This is the same economist who claimed that the election of Trump would cause the markets to fall, and stay depressed for the next four years.
"The thing with income is that the first parts of it are spent very, very fast on essential goods and services. "
Actually the evidence is that if you give people free money they spend it on crap first. What you are really buying with UBI are votes, power, and control over people. Get enough people on UBI and they will vote to keep you in power forever, which is how repressive totalitarian regimes can be created without firing a shot. Is this what you want? I think you're being duped.
Every site we develop has a dev instance with Robots set to dissallow, and a prod instance. If the dev instances get exposed to the outside world (search, archive, wayback) then you have to teach reviewers how to use local vhost files which will be a huge pain in the ass, or put .htaccess passwords on everything which is just plain stupid.
S-100 Bus no name with 16K and and 8080, micropolis hard sector 8" floppies. Loved it almost as much as my Heathkit HW-16.
Thanks having been a Ham since the eighties I understand spectrum. The only area where we disagree is on regulations - I believe that the whole notion that one group of humans organized in hierarchical groups is somehow superior to another group of humans in hierarchical groups is fundamentally flawed. For example, many people believe that government is benevolent whereas corporations are evil. Or that one religion is superior to another.
Societies with a free flow of information are, in my opinion, self policing. There's plenty of evidence to support this going back to the 1800's. Just look at what's happening to United Airlines right now.
It's when somebody decides they can make money by taking advantage of others that we get big problems, and I have found it's the politicians who are the worst of the worst, all the while telling us how smart they are and how stupid the rest of us country bumpkins are....
I never suggested anarchy. What I am saying is that some states are vastly over-regulated and that is part of the the problem.
It varies greatly from state to state. In Texas I have a choice of 7 electricity companies. In Michigan, no choices. You can't tell me that's not the governments fault. Texas is a red state, Michigan is a blue state trying to become a purple state. Coincidence? Maybe. But the way the two states handle competition among utilities is completely different.
It's getting harder and harder to find places with no LTE coverage. I don't think it's a matter of poles, I think it's more a matter of the fiber connection at the base of the pole. Assuming that some of the DTV channel spectrum is allowed to be auctioned off we'll have a nice new segment for more WI-Fi and we'll see if "super wi-fi" comes to pass.
I remember when the fastest speed we could ever get using POTS was 1200 baud. And then 2400 baud. And then 9600 baud, that was it. And here I am at my Texas house in the middle of nowhere on 6MB dialup. So before anyone says "That isn't possible" look at history. 6MB over copper phone lines is PFM as far as I am concerned. (Pure Fucking Magic)
In the early days of the Internet there were maybe 2 fiber carriers, AT&T and WilTel. Now there are many of them. That's because it all happened to fast for the government to fuck it up. There's plenty of room on oil pipeline right of ways for lots more fiber to be run. But to hear people talk AT&T controls the whole internet in some evil monopolistic money grubbing theft ring and "there ought to be more regulation".
If one looks back at the history of regulation - it started with the RailRoads, who had a problem with safety, there was public outcry, the Railroads formed an association and policed themselves, and then the government decided it had to get involved. Now everyone believes "there ought to be a law" or nothing happens and look at the mess were in....
"1. It is economically unfeasible for anyone to bring you service other than the existing provider who is piggybacking on prior infrastructure. In this case, you chose a poor place to live. It's not the fault of the company or the taxpayer that it would cost $10 million in fiber to service 100 rural customers and they won't do it because there's no reasonable return on investment. If you don't like it, nobody is putting a gun to your head saying you have to stay there. Some people move because they want more land, or less traffic, or better climate. Internet service is no different."
I hear this statement over and over but it's just not true. It's only true in places where the government has picked winners and losers, and created a monopoly because of the huge bribes, er contributions paid by the players. You are spot on there.
At this moment I am sitting in BFE Central Texas. There is one electric line coming to the house, I have a choice of 7 different providers, because there is some small sanity in Texas outside of Austin and electric providers were deregulated. I have three choices for Internet: 3g from AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. DSL from the phone company (6MB down 768k up), and satellite internet. I can't get cable TV, or gas. Do I have fiber to my house? No, the nearest fiber is many miles away. 6 MB down DSL is enough for me to watch movies on netflix/you tube, make Skype video calls, etc.
If you have a phone line, you can probably get DSL. If you're living somewhere without phone service, you don't want the Internet....
I think the whole "We have to get the Internet to rural areas" is all about political corruption, same as you. My bet is some Union that funnels money to the DNC, which is why the story line is that we have to force "evil corporations" to provide a product to people.
Looks like plenty of players here with small shares to me http://broadbandnow.com/Fiber
It's the LEX that's the problem. We have a score of fiber providers competing with each other. In many states we have lots of electricity companies competing with each other (Texas is a great example) and there is only one set of wires. The LEX is controlled by governments who create the monopolies based on the biggest bribe...
Time and time again, for thousands of years, the evidence is that if you put a bunch of people in a room, give them a task, and don't pick a leader, a leader emerges.
Ask ANYONE who has managed teams, from a McDonald's franchise to an enterprise class I.T. project.
Problems occur when the leader is chosen for some stupid reason, like the girl with the biggest tits, the bosses son, or the guy who bought everyone donuts for a month. What makes you think the entire world of humans operates any differently?
We have big ISP's because the government created them, and now you want the government to "solve" the problem it created. Good luck with that. It's akin to solving your management problems by having the girl with the biggest tits get a boob job and expecting the project to be completed on time as a result.
I agree with you but I'd bet that State had a shitty, super-expensive monopoly electric service because the government allowed it to come into existence. The five year ban on a revolving door between government and lobbying implemented by the Trump Administration needs to be implemented nationwide.
If you put the government in charge of the Saraha Desert, in five years there would be a sand shortage - Milton Friedman. It's a true statement...
Oh come on, There's no reason at all to lose any money in "market crashes" if you have sell stops on your investments. If you're not doing that you should not be playing the market. If you're investing in real estate for anything other than your primary residence if you didn't do your due diligence on the market you bought into your an idiot. If it's your primary residence then you need to focus on paying it off as quickly as possible.
The idea that "computer investors" intentionally crash the market is so far out there I won't waste my time commenting on it.
Thank You. I too have been flying around the world since the early 80's and you are correct, it's the same everywhere. People who bitch and complain about Air Travel in the U.S, Europe, or Australia should try flying the Ukrainian National Airline, the most fun you'll ever have on a plane. You'll get off and say "Wow I didn't know it was so cold up there, and that a 727 could do that"
Funny how you blame corporations. When you book flights do you always look for the most expensive one?
The vast majority of consumers vote with their wallets every single time. People bitch and complain about offshoring and evil corporations but then go buy cheap Chinese crap at Wal-Mart and pass up the products with "Made in USA" labels. Then they lament that all the manufacturing jobs are gone.
If this was true Carnival Cruise Lines would have no passengers, and the upscale Cruise Lines would be raking it in hand over fist.
Your asserting that you know what the "vast majority want" just doesn't match reality. When you go to the next level, and assert that "There ought to be a law..." then things get REALLY fucked up. Are you old enough to remember the Airlines before de-regulation? Only the rich could afford to fly.
And that's just the part you easily see, when you add use fees, car registration, sales tax, property tax, etc. it adds up to even more.
As the owner of a small business corporation I'd sure like to know how I can "whittle my taxes down to near zero", because I am paying, paying, and paying both business taxes and personal taxes.
The usual cherry picked statistics to support class warfare. Having listened to this shit argument for 30 some odd years you'd think it would just dry up and blow away. If you took all the wealth of the rich it would fund the government for about a week, the problem we have is excessive spending not too low or too high taxes.
Oversampling Democrats is well known, well documented, and not at all new.